Young duo denies baseball bat attack at Highfields

Peter Hardwick
Reporter
Peter started in 1976 as apprentice typesetter/comp and has 32 years with The Chronicle in three stints (in between working/holidays in UK/Europe, Brisbane and Melbourne). Entered editorial from comp room in 1996.

A WITNESS has told Toowoomba District Court of watching as his mate was felled by a blow to the head with a baseball bat before he too was struck as he went to his mate's aid.

Kane Parton told the court a dual cab utility containing four people had turned up at the Highfields residence he was at in the early evening of New Year's Eve 2015.

He said some of the group started rifling through his mate's utility parked out front and he had called to him.

When his mate approached the group, one of the men struck his mate in the head with a baseball bat and his mate "went stiff and dropped to the ground", Parton said.

As he was bent over his friend checking him, the man had swung the bat at him, prompting him to put up his arm in defence and somehow he grabbed the bat and threw it behind him, he said.

The four people had then driven off, he said.

Parton told the court he had earlier that afternoon ordered by text message 10 MDMA (ecstacy) tablets from someone he didn't know but a man had arrived at the Highfields' home and handed him 10 pills for $250.

However, he later contacted the same number complaining the pills were "duds" and had no effect and the person replied that he would return to the address later that evening, he said.

After the alleged assault, Parton said he had identified two men on police photoboards, one he accused of wielding the baseball bat and the other as the man who had sold him the MDMA pills.

Accused Konnor Azrael Millet, 20, and Alexander James Maynard, 19, have pleaded not guilty to two counts each of assault occasioning bodily harm while armed and in company.